


Don’t Think I’ve Ever Used a Day of my Education

by theimperialbogmonster (songs_of_the_moon)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Humor, M/M, Questionable Priorities, Questionable decision-making, Youtuber Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs_of_the_moon/pseuds/theimperialbogmonster
Summary: When a song about a beautiful stranger goes viral, Jaskier seizes his chance for success. His star is on the rise, and life is good.And then everything goes to shit when said beautiful stranger moves in next door.“You wrote an ode to his shoulders without even knowing his name.”“I saw him forten secondsas he jogged past me! It’s not exactly the kind of situation where you can waltz up and introduce yourself!”“Maybe not for you,” Yennefer said, tossing her hair.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 85





	1. And I don’t come here for the exclusivity/I just come here for the view

Jaskier sat back against the tree, idly strumming his guitar. It was a gorgeous day, hot but not sweltering, and he had started it with every intention of making it a productive one as well. He’d come to the park with his guitar and his songbook, planning to compose a new song, or refine some he’d already started, but as soon as he’d set foot on the lush grass, his inspiration had vanished. The sweet scent of honeysuckle and the quiet babbling of the creek had taken its place, and all Jaskier wanted to do was nothing. 

He leafed through his songbook absent-mindedly, more attention on the tiny birds in the grass a few yards away. One of them whistled, so he mimicked it. Several other birds responded in kind; it made Jaskier feel like a Disney princess. 

Approaching footsteps startled the birds away. Jaskier turned to them, frowning—only to see the most exquisite specimen of a man he’d ever laid eyes on. The runner was scowling, looking at nothing but the path before him. His pale, sweat-damp hair was contained by a headband, his broad shoulders glistened under the sun, and his running shorts did nothing to hide his incredible ass, impossible thighs, and firm calves. 

_Oh, fuck,_ Jaskier thought dimly. 

The runner rounded a bend and vanished. Jaskier belatedly realized his mouth was hanging open. 

“Well,” Jaskier said to himself. “It seems inspiration has struck after all.” And then he started writing.

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Yennefer said over their third round of beer, a week after Jaskier saw the most beautiful man in the world. “You saw a hot guy at the park, and immediately wrote a song about him. Do you have any idea how creepy that is?” Her eyes danced with laughter. 

“Okay, one, you have no room to call anyone else creepy,” Jaskier said, gesturing with his bottle of Voodoo Ranger, “and two, it’s not _about_ him, it was _inspired_ by him. Big difference.”

Yennefer did not look convinced. “You wrote an ode to his shoulders without even knowing his name.”

“I saw him for _ten seconds_ as he jogged past me! It’s not exactly the kind of situation where you can waltz up and introduce yourself!”

“Maybe not for you,” Yennefer said, tossing her hair. 

“Look, it’s not like he’ll ever _hear_ it, and even if he did, there’s no way he’d know it was about him, or connect it to some stranger ogling him in the park. I’m sure people ogle him all the time.”

“Is the fact that he’s never going to hear it somehow supposed to make this less creepy?” Yennefer asked dryly. 

“It’s not creepy!”

* * *

The video went viral while Jaskier was getting drunk with Yennefer. He woke to a dry mouth, pounding temples, and more notifications than he could wrap his head around. 

He stared at his phone until the screen went dark. Then, for lack of any better ideas, he called Yennefer. 

_“You fucked up, bard,”_ she said, laughing, as soon as she answered the phone. 

“You’re too cruel, Yenna,” Jaskier whined. “Here I am, crawling to you for help, and the first thing you do is mock me.”

_“I don’t know what you think I can do to get you out of this mess,”_ she said. A put-upon sigh filtered down the line. _“Look, your best bet is probably to ignore it. If you don’t feed the fire, it’ll burn out on its own.”_

That was...doubtless good advice, if Jaskier thought about it. Not that he intended to follow it. “But how am I supposed to _ignore_ it? None of my other songs generated half the response of this stupid little ode to a hot stranger. This is my chance at fame! I can’t just go back to languishing in obscurity!”

Jaskier didn’t have to see Yennefer to know she was rolling her eyes. _“Then make it your brand, you ambitious bastard. Change your Twitter handle to ‘thirsty bard’ and lean in.”_

Even mocking him, no one but Yennefer ever managed to make _ambitious_ sound so much like a compliment. “You know what, that’s an excellent idea. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my career writing wistful songs about beautiful people who pass through my life in the blink of an eye. Say, Yennefer, don’t you think it’s about time I wrote a song about you?”

_“Ass,”_ Yennefer said, in the same half-mocking, half-approving tone she had used to call him a bastard.

* * *

Jaskier leaned in. One month and two more songs about beautiful strangers, and his subscribers had more than quadrupled. He started to vlog as well, after several comments asking about his life and his creative process. If there was one thing Jaskier liked talking about, it was himself, and the vlogging was a hit. Soon he was posting hair-styling tutorials and brief flashes of his daily life alongside his music, and it seemed like his fans—his _fans!—_ couldn’t get enough. 

Life was good. Not easy, not when he still had to work at the bookstore down the street because his music barely covered his share of the groceries on a good month, but nice. Comfortable in a way it hadn’t been since he’d left for college and abandoned the casual, empty luxury of his parents’ life. 

Shani, the med student who shared an apartment with him, rolled her eyes when he announced his latest follower milestone and told him not to let it go to his head. 

“Look, I’m not saying you’re not talented, because you are, but you’ve watched the rise and fall of enough internet darlings to know you’re standing on a very narrow ledge, here. Just—” She sighed, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, _christ, I sound like my mother,_ and said, “Just don’t quit your day job, okay?”

That stung, coming from someone Jaskier considered a friend, but he had to admit she was right. Passion wouldn’t pay the bills, after all. Still, Jaskier wrote, and sang, and recorded. His following continued to grow, spurred on by songs of missed connections in bars and clubs, and beautiful, distant strangers in libraries and coffee shops. His second-most popular song was about twisting his ankle while hiking and being helped back to civilization by a gruff but kindly stranger with broad shoulders and dark stubble. The story was entirely untrue—Jaskier had never even been hiking—but people related to it nonetheless, enjoying the fantasy of being touched tenderly in a time of need. The gorgeous runner in the park scarcely entered his mind, save for the occasional grateful thought to the man who’d started it all. 

Yes, life was good. 

And then the beautiful stranger moved in next door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from “Your Body is a Weapon” by The Wombats!


	2. If This is a Romcom, Kill the Director, Please

_ “Shani, help!”  _ Jaskier stage-whispered, back pressed to the door. He had looked through the peephole when he heard commotion in the hallway. He expected to see his new neighbor moving in, and his heart had stopped when he saw a familiar shock of pale hair and a scowl. It was the man from the park, biceps bulging obscenely from the weight of the boxes he carried.  _ How is he even more attractive the second time,  _ Jaskier thought, half-hysterically. 

Shani didn’t so much as look up from her anatomy textbook, studious even at the height of summer. “Whatever trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time, I want no part of it.”

“You don’t understand! It’s  _ him!” _

That got him an eye-roll. “Which  _ him, _ Jaskier? An ex? A man whose partner you fucked? Valdo Marx?” 

“The hot guy from the park! The one I wrote that song about!”

Shani stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “Of course it is,” she wheezed. “Of course it fucking is.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried unsuccessfully to smother her laughter. 

“I hate you, and you’re a terrible person,” Jaskier said primly, which only set off another gale of laughter. 

“Okay, okay,” Shani said, once she’d composed herself, still a little breathless. “So the guy you wrote a creepy song about is moving in next door. Now what?”

That was the question Jaskier was dreading. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t even protest her calling the song creepy. “I hide in here until I die?” he offered weakly. 

Shani rolled her eyes again. “No, you go out there and introduce yourself like a grown-up. Offer to help carry boxes, or something, and make a good impression. And under no circumstances do you mention the song.”

“Of course I’m not going to mention the song! I’m reckless, not suicidal.” Jaskier took a deep breath, trying to psych himself up. “You can do this, Julian. Just go out there and make conversation. You can do this, you’re good at talking. You can do this.”

“For god’s sake, stop talking to yourself and go,  _ Julian.”  _ Shani made a shooing gesture. 

Right, then. Another deep breath. Jaskier opened the door. 

He almost walked into another man carrying boxes. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Jaskier took a step back, waving his hands. 

“Don’t worry about it,” the man grunted. He had neat hair and unfortunate acne scars. 

“Actually, I, well, I live next door, and I was wondering if you wanted some help?” Even though it wasn’t the beautiful stranger from the park, they were clearly friends, and it was making Jaskier nervous. 

The man looked from Jaskier’s face to his arms. He laughed. “Yeah, all right. You can try.”

Jaskier bristled, all thoughts of making a good impression subsumed by outrage. “Just because I don’t spend all my free time at the gym doesn’t mean I’m  _ useless.” _

“Coën, stop terrorizing my new neighbor,” growled the sexiest, most terrifying voice Jaskier had ever heard. 

It was the runner. Of course. Jaskier valiantly stopped himself from gaping like a fish. 

He rallied quickly. “Well, hello there! I’m Jaskier; I live right over there.” He waved at his apartment door. “I have a roommate, Shani, but she’s too busy studying to come out and introduce herself. Lovely to meet you!” He gave a little bow, and Coën laughed. 

The other man stared. His eyes really were remarkable, now that Jaskier had a chance to look. Why, he’d never seen a hazel like that before, nearly gold. “Geralt,” the man said at length, and it took Jaskier a moment to realize it was his name. 

Coën rolled his eyes. “I think your little speech there overwhelmed him,” he said to Jaskier. “He’s almost reached his limit on social interactions for the day.”

“Fuck you,” Geralt muttered, shouldering him none too gently as he passed. Coën only laughed again and took his boxes into the empty apartment. 

Jaskier followed Geralt down the hall. “As I was saying to your friend, I’d love to help you get moved in. I know how much of a headache moving is, after all, and how much easier it goes with more hands.”

Geralt stopped, then turned to face him. “Why?” he asked, deeply suspicious. 

“Why...do I want to help? Well, it’s the neighborly thing to do, isn’t it? We’re going to be living next to each other for the foreseeable future. It will be much more pleasant for both of us if we’re on friendly terms.” And make it much easier for Jaskier to break the news about that damn song, if it ever came down to it. 

“Hm.”

That seemed to be all Geralt had to say on the subject. Jaskier followed him outside, where they found a man who could only be his brother trying to wrestle a couch off a truck bed single-handedly. 

“Geralt! Took you long enough, you bastard.” He looked at Jaskier and grinned. It showed an awful lot of his teeth. “Making friends already?” he drawled. 

“Fuck off.”

“I’m Lambert, and this brute is Geralt. He only knows three words, and two of them are  _ fuck.” _ Lambert leaned against the pick-up, leering, couch apparently forgotten. 

“Keep talking, and I’ll use you as fertilizer for Vesemir’s rose bushes,” Geralt growled. 

Lambert snorted. “As if he’d let my remains sully his precious roses.”

Geralt ran a hand over his face. “I knew I should have waited until Eskel was free.”

“I already know Eskel is your favorite brother, there’s no need to rub it in,” Lambert sneered. “And don’t forget whose truck is hauling all your shit across town.”

“No one’s forgotten anything,” Coën said placatingly, as he returned from his latest trip. “Let’s not fight in front of Geralt’s new neighbor, hmm?”

Lambert rolled his eyes. “As if living beside Geralt will be anything  _ but  _ a fight.”

_ “Lambert,”  _ Geralt growled. He said something in a language Jaskier didn’t recognize. It sounded like a cross between French and Latin, but Jaskier, despite spending most of his childhood summers in Paris and taking Latin in high school, couldn’t make heads or tails of it. 

Whatever he said, it made Lambert sullenly return to the couch. Coën climbed onto the truck bed to help. 

Geralt shot Jaskier a look he couldn’t decipher. “Well?” He gestured at the boxes piled beside the pick-up. 

Jaskier beamed, despite his confusion, and grabbed a box.

* * *

Jaskier watched the taillights of Lambert’s truck as he drove away for the last time. It had taken several hours and two more trips that Jaskier hadn’t been invited on, but Geralt was finally moved in. 

“Thank you,” Geralt said haltingly. “You didn’t have to—to do any of that.”

“I know,” Jaskier said lightly. “But that’s what friends are for. And I know this is terribly presumptuous of me, but I do hope that we can be friends.”

Geralt watched him for a long moment—and his eyes weren’t really hazel at all, were they? They were truly gold, gleaming like polished metal in the afternoon light. Jaskier had seen enough colored contacts to know that that wasn’t what he was looking at. It was impossible, of course, and yet here he was. 

“Why don’t you come over for dinner?” Jaskier asked, mouth moving faster than his brain. “You’ve worked hard today. The least you deserve is a home-cooked meal.”

“And is this something else that  _ friends  _ do for each other?” Geralt asked slowly, like the very word was heavy on his tongue. 

“Absolutely!” Jaskier chirped, banishing images of romantic, candlelit dinners to the furthest part of his brain. 

“Hm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Geralt gave Lambert a dressing-down in the Elder Speech, in case it wasn’t clear.)  
> Chapter title comes from “Kill the Director” by The Wombats!


End file.
